For seventy days this summer, the Olympic torch will be carried through the length and breadth of the UK by around 8,000 different people. Each will carry it for only a short time before passing it on to the next person to cover a total distance of some 8,000 miles. Great crowds of people will be eager to watch the torch as it passes through over a thousand communities before it reaches London on 27th July where it will ceremonially set alight the great Olympic flame to burn there for the duration of the 2012 Games.
The torch and its flame have a long history, back to around 776 BC, some of it shrouded in antiquity, its origins in mythology. Parts of its history are missing and other parts have had dark connections, but it burns on with vigour, zeal and pride in the hands of those who carry it. For these carefully selected torchbearers, carrying this torch is a huge privilege and honour.
In this magazine we have recently been remembering some of the men and women who carried the torch of truth in previous centuries. Each passed it on to others and it is now in our hands. Their work and their dedication, their martyrdom even, have brought eternal benefits to millions throughout the world. One of them, tied to another at the stake, said as the fire began to burn, "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out" (Hugh Latimer, Oxford, 1555). It has not been put out but burns brightly in every continent of the world.
Being a Torchbearer
As we conclude this Torchbearers series, let us remember and realise how privileged and honoured we are to be carrying the torch now. Being a torchbearer of the truth is not only about the past. It was important then, through dark ages of ignorance and superstition, in times of fierce opposition from religious and secular powers, during onslaughts of a new intellectualism, rationalism and higher criticism. It is, however, equally needed now, in a new century of perhaps different types of opposition, be it advanced intellectualism and rationalism, or secularism and materialism, atheism or agnosticism, or just apathy and indifference to spiritual and eternal realities. We are called now to "shine as lights in the world" - indeed we are privileged to do this, much more than Olympic torchbearers. We can shine, indeed we must, so that all those worthy characters who have gone before us will "not have run in vain, neither laboured in vain" as Paul himself said (Phil 2.15-16).
Among the 8,000 Olympic torchbearers there will be a great variety of individuals, each with a single aim and objective – to carry the torch confidently and pass it on. The youngest will be twelve years old; the oldest one hundred. Some will be fit and strong, others disabled. Around 110 of them every day will carry it in all weathers according to a master timetable. It will cross land and sea, will pass through busy cities and remote villages, not stopping until it reaches its final destination.
How many of our cities and villages will we reach with the gospel this summer? Can we carry the torch somehow, just where we are? Every believer of every age group and of any ability can do it, so long as they are "a vessel…sanctified, and meet for the master’s use" (2 Tim 2.21). Our Lord and Master’s commission has not been withdrawn - to go and preach the gospel, to make disciples of all nations, to be His witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth (Mk 16.15; Mt 28.19; Acts 1.8).
Our cities, towns and villages are needy places, many of them as dark as night. From the leafy suburbs and the affluent neighbours to the dismal city centres with the poor, the homeless and destitute, from busy shopping malls and crowded sports arenas to lonely souls who never get a visit, from schools and colleges and universities to the ranks of the unemployed – each has its own problems and all need the gospel. Can we run the torch within the reach of some of them? Our Lord’s instructions were straightforward: "Let your light so shine before men". Let it shine on everyone within our range, with good works as well as with clear words. Don’t hide it under a bed (of indulgence?) or a bushel (of commerce?) (Mt 5.14-16).
Worldwide scope
In 2004 the Olympic torch travelled nearly 50,000 miles right round the globe, carried by 11,300 people, before it reached Athens again where the games were being held. It has been taken from place to place on foot, on horseback, by camel, in canoes, on ships and planes including Concorde, even underwater. It has also been transmitted by radio signal and satellite. And so has the gospel. Did the Lord not say, "all nations" (Mt 28.19), "all the world" (Mk 16.15)? Over the centuries His servants have gone, some literally trailblazing into uncivilised and primitive societies at great personal risk and cost, into the treacherous frozen wastes and the disease laden humid tropics, into the mystic east and the wild west.
The great age of missionary expansion from the UK (or Great Britain as it then was called), in the providence of God was facilitated by the infrastructure of the British Empire "on which the sun never set". In slow steamships and then thousands of miles on foot, on horseback, on oxcarts and in dugout canoes they went with the gospel of life. They brought the light to the many who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. And today also the same torch of truth burns on, as in every continent native believers along with foreigner helpers are bearing witness to the Saviour of sinners.
But there are still many who have never heard, many held captive by hostile and harmful forces and religious dogma. How can we reach them? God still calls for willing servants to go, and many are going where He leads. His Word is also reaching into "closed" societies by radio, satellite and internet dissemination, as well as by tried and tested literature routes. Let the torch blaze on!
Origins
Every time it is required, the Olympic torch is lit at Mount Olympus in Greece by a complex ceremony based upon its ancient origins. This year it was lit on 10th May. A parabolic mirror focuses the sun’s rays upon it until it catches fire, then it is transported to the nation hosting the games. The tradition of a relay of runners carrying the torch dates from only 1936 when it was brought from Athens to Berlin non-stop over twelve days and eleven nights by 3,331 runners. At that time, however, it was used for the more sinister purpose of bolstering the Nazi cause.
The torch of the gospel was lit at mount Calvary, lit in dense darkness when the sun’s rays were blotted out as our Saviour died alone, bearing the heavy load of our sins. Then the great message of salvation "at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him" (Heb 2.3). This message does not need to be renewed every few years, nor redesigned, nor its terms changed to suit a modern audience. Our task is to pass it on as it is - for as it is it is "the power of God unto salvation unto everyone that believeth" (Rom 1.16). We have a stewardship of the truth received from the Lord Himself through those who have gone before us, for us to pass on to others coming after us, until "the end of the world" (Mt 28.20).
Sadly, some have modified the torch too much and have invented "another gospel". We know that sometimes it has been preached from unworthy motives (Phil 1.15-16). But today let us not be distracted from the honour of carrying this torch, this "treasure in earthen vessels". These are fragile so that the glory will be His and not ours, but they are necessary because the treasure, the torch inside, is "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 4.6). Let us make sure we keep on letting this light shine out into the darkness all around us today.
To be continued.
